


High Upon the Walls in the Sight of Many

by strideroh



Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies), The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Feels, Fluff, Mix Between Book and Movie, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-10
Updated: 2021-01-23
Packaged: 2021-03-13 19:00:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,566
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28658373
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/strideroh/pseuds/strideroh
Summary: "And he took her in his arms and kissed her under the sunlit sky, and he cared not that they stood high upon the walls in the sight of many." - J.R.R. Tolkien
Relationships: Bilbo Baggins/Thorin Oakenshield, Fíli (Tolkien)/Sigrid (Hobbit Movies), Kíli (Tolkien)/Tauriel (Hobbit Movies)
Comments: 6
Kudos: 29





	1. Chapter One

Sigrid could safely say that it wasn’t everyday twelve dwarves (and what looked like a small child with hairy feet) climbed out of her toilet. More often, it was crabs who climbed stealthily out of the lake and into their tiny home, or fish who leapt excitedly from the depths of the water and became stranded on the damp, freezing wooden toilet seat. (When this happened, the younger children were always allowed the rare treat of roasted fish or hearty, tender crab meat. Therefore, this was always a fortuitous occasion.) As dwarfs were inedible (at least to humans), Sigrid felt no excitement as she ventured to investigate the slight banging noises that were emitting from the water closet, only to be met with the sight of several weary, dripping wet dwarves.   
Rather, a sensation of exhaustion fell over her, and a slight headache abounded as she stood frozen in the doorway, watching them emerge slowly, painstakingly from below. She briefly wondered at their swimming skills (after all, what time did mining dwarfs have to learn to swim?) before she was snapped back to the reality at hand by an exclamation of surprise from her younger sister Tilda, who had chased Sigrid into the small water closet.   
“Why are there dwarves coming out of our toilet?” Tilda clung to her older sister’s skirts.   
Sigrid sighed, deeply. For dwarves to be in Laketown, and more, for dwarves to be in Laketown and in the run-down shack where Sigrid and her family lived, she could only infer some involvement from her upstanding father. Her mind also flitted, however briefly (as it usually did upon the mention of dwarves) to the myth of the dragon that dwelt in the mountain.   
Lately, it seemed to Sigrid that anything he could do to undermine the Master of Laketown, he would do, any opportunity that presented itself he would take. A small part of her wondered where he had found the dwarves. She couldn’t imagine that any resident of the Iron Hills would travel eastward and consent to spend time on the Lake, nor did she find it likely that her father had traveled that far to the west. Most of the measly income that supported Bard and his family was to be had closer to the forest and the Wood Elves that resided within. Their prosperous business dealings were familiar to most every resident of Laketown, as much elven product ended up on their shores.   
Moreover, there hadn’t hardly been a dwarf this close to the mountain in near sixty years. Fear of the great wyrm who, of legend, resided in the mountain to the North had kept them away, a mass avoidance that involved (for the most part) the entire species, making it so that many citizens of Laketown had never seen a dwarf in the flesh.   
Sigrid couldn’t profess to have ever seen a dwarf (until now) but she had seen illustrations. Many men on the Lake, when drinking with her father in the kitchen, had expressed skepticism as to the continued existence of Smaug the Conqueror, why dwarves from the Iron Hills did not take a route that approached the mountain, but instead ventured South and around. The people on the lake had never seen, heard, or smelled any indication that a dragon still lived there, though none were brave enough to check for sure. To them, the desolation was something that wasn’t worth much thought, as there were other things to be getting on with. Sigrid herself barely had time to think these days, but even so, her mind couldn’t help flitting to the Lonely Mountain upon catching sight (and smell) of the dwarves.   
“Aye,” she finally spoke, having contemplated the dwarves for long enough. Until her father arrived, the responsibility fell onto Sigrid as to inviting the dwarves to into her home. “That’s a bloody marvelous question, Tilda. Why don’t you all come in and tell us all about it?”   
☼☼☼   
They would need to wash, and to dry their clothes. This was non-negotiable if they were to stay in the house of Bard (as they appeared as if they had nowhere else to stay, and she supposed those were her father’s wishes). Of course, this seemed impossible, as considering their unorthodox entrance, Sigrid could infer that they were trying to avoid detection. If her father was involved, what mischief was afoot? She knew her father knew better than to galavant smuggled dwarfs publicly around town. But if what Sigrid thought needed to be done were to get done, she would need to find somewhere where the dwarves couldn’t be seen. Though no doubt her father was oblivious to the state in which he had invited the dwarves into his house (to greet his lady-daughters. All covered in fish, and grime, and blood…) the responsibility was on her to remedy this abysmal situation. Though she had guided the dwarf-folk out of the water closet, they still seemed uncomfortably cramped inside the main floor of the flat. The aging driftwood creaked loudly under their weight, like the soft groan of an injured animal.   
“Okay,” Sigrid whispered to herself as she paced back and forth, trying to figure out an alternative to sneaking thirteen dwarves (and one little person) out of her home, through the toilet (again), or through any more unsanctimonious means. She sighed, turning towards the dwarves with her pale hands raised defensively. “Okay. Here’s what’s going to happen.” One or two dwarves turned Sigrid’s way, but the rest seemed to be preoccupied at the nearest window. Her father still hadn’t returned to the house.   
“Hey!” Her sister Tilda reprimanded, ever loyal by her side as they leaned against the driftwood counter. More dwarves turned their way.  
Sigrid was caught off-guard by all of their eyes suddenly upon her. It was disarming. The eyes, the smell, the grime. “Okay, here is what is going to happen. All of you must wash, and ah—” she paused as one of the dwarves opened his mustachioed mouth to protest, “this is non-negotiable. You were invited into our home by the lord of this house, and now you must deal with the lady; his daughter.” She sounded more confident than she felt.   
“We are going to go in groups of four, out the downstairs door, spaced approximately fifteen minutes apart. I will take one group, Tilda will take one, and Bain will take the third. I expect no protests. You will lie in a canoe and we will row you to—” Sigrid looked at her younger siblings, their eyes wide, “the copse, is this okay, you two?”   
She really needed them to do this. She knew that they knew their way around the lake, but none of them had gone alone before. Under ordinary circumstances, Sigrid would have suggested an alternative plan, but she was in shock; mere minutes before she had been greeted by these unfamiliar (and unwelcome) dwarves; strangers, and the smell, by the Valar, the smell, the mud that they were tracking onto the floor and onto the threadbare rugs, Sigrid thought she might go mad. Where in Valar had her father gotten to? Time was passing too quickly for inaction. The house was beginning to reek, a damp stink that Sigrid knew would sink into the floorboards and, before long, be irreversible and chronic. She needed for her brother and sister to do this. This was the best plan she could come up with, given the situation.  
Bain nodded first, slowly. Sigrid turned her eyes to Tilda, who looked up to her older sister. Seeing reassurance, she nodded her head.   
“The other two of you,” Sigrid resumed, looking back up at them, “will stay here and wait for Da. He will take you once we return.” She could only hope that none of the neighbors found the three children rowing public canoes unseemly---or suspicious.   
There was nothing for it. Giving her younger siblings another cursory glance, Sigrid turned towards the door, expecting four dwarven folk to follow. She didn’t really care to separate them into groups herself. Indeed, she hoped to stay as far removed as she could from this unfamiliar species.   
Deeming the coast clear, she rushed to the nearest canoe and quickly peeled up the waterproof lining (provided by the elves, one of the only purchases the Master had made to improve the way of life in town. Even so, the linings were crusted and dirty. Nobody in Laketown bothered to clean up after themselves). She gestured for the dwarves to follow her, directing them to lie down on the floor of the longboat. It was a tight fit, but what else could she do? Praying to her lucky stars, Sigrid began to row.   
In childhood, Bard had taken his children, on very special occasions, to a hidden lagoon off the western shore of the lake (one of many secret locations he knew of). Concealed by thick pines and gargantuan boulders, Sigrid, Bain, and Tilda had been free to run naked, to swim, to laugh. The fresh blue water had been just what the children had needed on hot summer days, on crisp autumn afternoons. Though it had been years since Bard himself had taken the children, they had visited themselves (with Sigrid acting as chaperone) a few times since, leading up to the present day. It seemed a natural bathing spot for the dwarves now, but Sigrid secretly worried that this event might ruin the spot for her and her siblings forever. She privately wished the dwarves would leave as soon as possible. They had divulged no information as to why they had come to Laketown, and therefore no information as to when they planned to leave. None of them had said a word to her. This, in Sigrid’s mind, was both a blessing and a curse.  
She wouldn’t take offense, as long as they planned to leave soon. Sigrid, already weary from a day’s work at home, grew exhausted as she rowed along the lake, her canoe cutting into the vibrant water like shears through paper. Her rowing grew slower and slower, the only thing keeping her active were her persistent thoughts of come on, Sigrid. Don’t look back. Don’t stop. Don’t stop until we get there. You can rest when we arrive, come on, Sigrid. And after what seemed like hours, they did arrive.   
The sun had moved farther in the sky, visible only through low-dipping clouds and the fog that hung over the water. The longboat bumped softly against the gravelly shore at long last, and the dwarves wasted no time in jumping from the canoe, rocking it violently. Once on the shore, one of them leaned over to vomit, while the rest proceeded to strip down to nothing, throwing their clothes haphazardly upon the ground.  
“Hey!” Protested Sigrid, panicked. She jumped out of the boat, her sturdy shoes making a splashing sound in the shallow water that was now starting to soak into the seam of her dress. She attempted to shield her eyes as she picked up the clothes dropped them, in a pile, in front of a secluded rock before soaking them.  
It wasn’t long before she heard stifled laughs and violent splashing sounds, and unable to stop herself, she glanced up. Surprisingly, her sheltered rock did nothing to conceal the dwarves she had brought to the copse. Immediately within her line of sight was an auburn haired dwarf, his rotund stomach protecting his modesty as he began to wade into the cool lagoon. She looked off to the right, her seasoned hands absentmindedly beginning to beat the wet clothes against the rock. There she saw a dwarf with a golden mane swimming further out into the blue.   
Sigrid noted the way the silver beads glistened off his wet hair almost ethereally, the strong arms that propelled him forward into the water. Though he was nearly too far away, his face was still visible to her as he came up for air, treading water as he ran his hands through his knotted locks. All of her life, she had seen pictures of dwarves in storybooks, bearded, grimy and oafish. After studying the blond haired dwarf for a second, she decided that not all dwarves were ugly and oafish, indeed, this one was nowhere near disagreeable.   
She averted her eyes back to the washing before she could see anything else she wasn’t supposed to. Her eyes slid over another brutish dwarf before finally looking down. Not all dwarves were heinous-looking, but most were.


	2. Chapter Two

Suffice it to say, Bard the Bargeman wasn’t pleased upon at last arriving home to find his children, thirteen dwarves (and a hobbit) missing without a trace. There were still damp footprints leading from the toilet into the house, their only canoe (and two of their neighbors’) were missing. Bard felt much too weary to truly muse as to where all his guests and his family might have gone, but he did make a show of searching frantically around the house. He paced a few times around their main living space in an angry, aggressive manner, muddy boots assaulting the creaky floorboards. Then, sighing, he fell into a threadbare chair. 

Around the lake, still out of sight, Tilda and Bain began helping Sigrid with the washing. The dwarves seemed not to consider their modesty; about who saw them. This worried Sigrid. It was one thing for Bain to be amongst the dwarves—he had gone bathing with the other men of Laketown before; he was very nearly a man (fifteen to Sigrid’s nineteen) but it made Sigrid uneasy to have Tilda around the bathing dwarves. She almost regretted enlisting her younger sister’s help, but she could even now see no alternative. If she had waited for her father to return from wherever he happened to be (and who knew when he would be back? All Sigrid could think about was the stench the dwarves had brought into the tiny house and the dirt turned to mud they tracked in. She had needed to get them out and clean as soon as possible) there was still no possibility they could leave Tilda behind, in the house alone, whilst they all rowed canoes to the shore of the lake.   
Now, it was Sigrid’s job to protect her. Sigrid knew little of the male body, but she could not imagine subjecting her sister to the sight. Sure, often Sigrid would see men rowing, shirtless, during the summer, and was hard-pressed to tear her eyes away from the strangely fascinating subject of lithe muscles contorting under pale skin. She knew it was wrong to take these thoughts into consideration, and this wariness simply made her more fearful of the opposite sex, more fearful of her own proximity to them, and now, her sister’s proximity to them.  
Sigrid often felt like there was a grand chasm that separated her gender from the other, one that often seemed unsurpassable. Men seemed to think and feel so differently from the few women she knew. It seemed their wiring was dichotomous to hers, and therefore she felt she could never fully connect with someone of the opposite sex, that there would always be an unfamiliarity, a veil that would keep her and any man from truly knowing each other.   
Though, she hadn’t put much thought into what it would look like when Tilda began to search for a husband. Sigrid fully expected never to marry. She would see her siblings into adulthood and afterwards, care for her father until the time he would die. Most girls her age that she had known during the few years she attended school were already married, and some were beginning to have children of their own. Sigrid couldn’t fathom doing the same. She hadn’t ever met a man she liked enough to marry, convinced she would never find the kind of love that had bound her father and mother together. She could recall with clarity a glowing childhood spent wide-eyed and observant at the display of tenderness between them, something she would never again witness. There seemed a time when the butcher’s son thought that she and him would marry, but Sigrid could not go through with any engagement. After some clumsy fumbling in a canoe one night, Sigrid had felt dirty, wrong. Somehow, she felt guilty and ashamed of having grown so much into a woman as to be thought of in marriage.   
He was now married to another girl from town, and Sigrid had heard they were expecting their first child sometime in the winter. She sometimes saw the butcher’s son on the boardwalk or when she was sent to get meat. He could never meet her eye.   
Perhaps Sigrid’s jaded opinion had seeped over into the protectiveness she felt towards her sister. All the same, she hadn’t had the time to give much credence into her thoughts about a man, not for herself, but for Tilda, young and kind. She often had time to think whilst hanging the washing or sweeping the floor, but she usually devoted this time to creating mental lists of all the things she still needed to do.  
Therefore, today was a special occasion, on more than one account. It seemed like they had been dallying at the lake’s edge both for too long and not long enough. She, Tilda, and Bain were barely halfway through the washing (something that was turning out to be even more grueling than usual. It seemed every single garment that the dwarves wore was grimy, stinking, bound together by filth) and there unfortunately seemed to be no end in sight. But in Sigrid’s shock at the sudden arrival of the company, it now appeared that she was unable to turn off whatever thoughts were racing through her head.  
Every now and again, Sigrid would sneak a glance at Tilda, trying her best to ascertain her sister’s ignorance to the behavior of the bathing dwarves (who, judging by the sounds emanating from the water, were beginning to splash each other) as well as trying to resist the temptation to glance their way herself. What could she say, she was curious…it wasn’t often that anyone in Laketown came in to contact with any other creature besides the occasional wood-Elf, if one was unlucky.   
Hours, it seemed, Sigrid beat laundry against the rocks, the unmannerly sounds of the dwarves abounded, dispersing in the air. The Autumn sun languished in the sky, threatening at all times to vanish beyond the rocks, the land, the lake, to somewhere unreachable and sinister. At long lasts, facing the naked dwarves became unavoidable. Looking up from her laundry, Sigrid was disconcerted to discover that her brother was nowhere to be found. His laundry sat, abandoned, strewn across the rocks. Where had he gotten off to? The unfortunate task seemed now to fall to Sigrid of retrieving the dwarves. Like every event that transpired on this forsaken day, her next decision now appeared unavoidable. Staring daggers towards her feet, she approached the area where the dwarves bathed.   
“Your clothes, while damp, are drying on the rocks. Please collect them and meet us at the boats.”  
“Ma’am, if you please,” came the voice of one of the company.  
“Yes?” said Sigrid, still averting her eyes.   
“Ma’am.”  
There came a silence. Curiosity warred with all notions of virtue and modesty in her mind. Finally, she could not help but chance a glance at the dwarves. She saw a crowd of tan, leathery (and in some cases portly) dwarves surrounding a dark haired, sallow looking figure.   
“Is everything alright?” Sigrid asked uneasily.   
“He needs medical attention,” came the voice of another one of the dwarves kneeling beside the figure. “Urgently.”   
Sigrid noticed that the voice had come from the fair dwarf she had observed earlier in the day. His features no longer expressed any semblance of calm or serenity. They had contorted themselves into a portrait of concern and enmity – towards what, Sigrid did not know. She did not dare approach the crowd. They seemed unabashed by their own nakedness. It was enough to make Sigrid’s heart beat a panicked tattoo against the inside of her ribcage, enough to rouge her cheeks an unflattering degree.   
She returned her gaze to her feet. “I know not of the plans my Da may have for you all, and I cannot speak with authority on the care or resources we will be able to provide for your friend.”  
“He’s my brother,” came the voice of the blond dwarf, “not my friend. He needs care urgently.”  
“Sir, I cannot help you right now. I entreat you to gather your clothing and head to the boats. Take the matter up with my Da when we return to the house.”  
“A great help you humans are. Useless during our time of dire need, useless now.”   
Sigrid felt her ears burn, her heartbeat thumped in her ear, pounding, always pounding, in anger. She said nothing but turned and began making her way towards the boats. Finally, she whispered almost inaudibly, and towards no particular audience, “It’s getting dark.”  
She could hear a few of the dwarves beginning to follow her towards the boat. She hoped the blond one would end up with Tilda or Bain, and upon returning to the stretch of rocks where she had been slaving away, was relieved to see her brother returned.   
“Where were you?” she asked, but didn’t truly care to hear the answer. She disliked the blond dwarf, she had decided, resented his blatant lack of respect, and what she judged to be a fundamentally ungrateful nature.  
Had it not been she who had snuck them from the sewers into their home? Had it not been she who had found them a safe place to bathe, who had washed their garments alongside her sister and brother? She knew not what purpose the dwarves had in entering Laketown (her mind again flitted to the myth of the dragon) nor why they had chosen her house particularly (again she wondered, what could her father be up to?) but she knew that if they were detected, the Master would deem these activities to be illegal and likely banish her father. Or worse. Dwarves entering Laketown without the permission of the Master (which she assumed they had, based on the fact of them coming out of the toilet) was no small matter.   
Sigrid did not appreciate the entitled attitude apparent in the blond dwarf’s dialogue. And what had he meant about humans being useless in a time of dire need? What had that to do with Sigrid?   
Thankfully, her boat was devoid of the dwarf and his brother, allowing her the space to ponder freely as she began to row, without the pressure of the resentment that was beginning to brew within her heart.   
It was growing dark, the sun beyond reach. It would be easier to sneak them back under the cover of night, Sigrid thought. She hoped her father would be back at the house by then, so that she could yield to his leadership and question him at the first available opportunity. She knew rudimentary first aid, she had bound Tilda and Bain’s cuts and scratches, bound the occasional broken bone. But she was unsure what resources her father would be willing to afford to an injured dwarf of all things, and in all honesty, was experiencing a great degree of trepidation at the prospect of approaching the dwarf close enough to inspect whatever wound he may have sustained. 

Indeed, the bargeman had been brooding where he sat for hours, watching the sun set behind the wind lance outside the window. At first, he had experienced concern at the absence of not only the dwarves, but his children as well, but had soon come to realize, in the deep trust he had invested into his oldest daughter, that no doubt she had made the wise decision, for whatever reason, to remove them for a time. He had known for a long while, ever since Sigrid was old enough to develop any sort of temperament, that she would grow into the most levelheaded person he would ever know. Where Bard was hasty to make decisions, reckless and spiteful, Sigrid was demure, cautious, and thoughtful. Bard trusted her discretion, he thought, more than he trusted just about anything in the wide world.  
Yet, as time wore on, and the sun followed its preordained path into the nether, he began to grow worried. What had become of his children? He realized what a terrible decision it had been to leave thirteen dwarves (and a hobbit, whatever that was) with his three young children. He trusted them not in the slightest, and felt uneasy thinking about his children left to the mercy of thirteen angry dwarves. He wasn’t all that familiar with their kind, besides the rare tradesman who passed through and sold him some illegal good or other, and he did not, in all realism, know if they were even beyond even cannibalism, though he had never read anything that indicated they might eat their own kind or other, similar species if provoked.   
However, there was nothing to be done. It was the unfortunate truth that he was so unaware as to the comings and goings of his children (as the main breadwinner of the household) he had not the faintest clue where to even start in looking for his children and the unruly dwarves he had smuggled into Laketown. He would be lying if he claimed any other motivation than utter insubordination and subversion towards the regime, his pure hatred for the Master.   
Sigrid no doubt knew this, and was no doubt trying to off-balance his sheer recklessness with the sensible decisions for which she was famous. He told himself that she would wait for the cover of dark to sneak the dwarves back into the house. One brazen attempt to move them in broad daylight was enough to risk.   
After the death of his beloved wife, Bard found his children simultaneously brought him the most joy and happiness and the most unbearable sorrow. Sometimes he felt overwhelmed, when he saw them, at how much his wife was still alive in their faces, their minds, their hearts. At times, he was grateful for this, and at others, he was overcome with a resentment such as he had never experienced that they were so similar to her, and yet, so equally individual and dissimilar. They were the closest he would ever get to her again. He could never again experience her touch, her loving smile, her sonorous voice, yet in the timber of Sigrid’s tones she lived again, in the slope of Bain’s nose, in Tilda’s sense of adventure and insatiable curiosity. In moments such as this, he wished his wife were here beside him.   
Yet all he could do was rely on his daughter, possibly pace back and forth, await her return. Currently, he experienced this notion to be the loneliest, most helpless sensation in the world. Every fiber in his body itched to do, not to wait. He longed to control something, where he felt so out of control. Bard stared out at the wind lance, resting just beyond the speckled windowpane. He wanted to do something. But still, as the sun continued to set, Bard watched and waited.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading the first chapter and for beginning on this adventure with me. If you enjoyed, please be sure to save, leave kudos, and drop a comment telling me what you think. Expect an update soon!
> 
> Best,
> 
> strideroh


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